Word: sir
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...case has divided the Jewish community, with some questioning its neutrality. "This is the great con," says Geoffrey Alderman, an expert on Anglo-Jewry at the University of Buckingham. Alderman points out that the board is bound by its constitution to defer to its most senior ecclesiastical authority, Sir Jonathan Sacks, on matters of religion - and Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the U.K.'s mainstream synagogues, is head of the United Synagogue, which has already spent $225,000 helping JFS defend its case. (Read "Avigdor Lieberman: Politically Incorrect...
...story of Sir Edward's "death pact" was at first sight an irresistible love story. His wife Joan, 74, a former ballerina, had a diagnosis of terminal liver and pancreatic cancer; because assisted suicide is illegal in Britain, they traveled to a Zurich clinic, where, for a fee of about $7,000 per patient, the group Dignitas arranges for death by barbiturate. "They drank a small quantity of clear liquid and then lay down on the beds next to each other," their son Caractacus said. They fell asleep and died within minutes, he reported, calling it a "very civilized" final...
...problem is that Sir Edward, while in failing health at age 85, was not dying. His eyesight was nearly gone, his hearing was weak, and he faced the prospect of life without his soulmate. But sorrow is not grounds for a doctor to assist in a suicide in most places that allow it. Nor is despair. The Netherlands permits euthanasia for those suffering intolerable pain; Oregon requires two doctors to confirm that the patient has less than six months to live...
...which we all aspire. But I'm not sure the solution is to invite Dignitas to open a clinic down the street from every hospital. Advances in palliative care mean that those last years of life do not have to be a moral, medical and financial nightmare. I respect Sir Edward's right to make what his manager called a "typically brave and courageous" choice. I just wish he'd had better choices...
...against these short-term military needs lie the questions of how long Britain must commit its troops to succeed in Afghanistan and what success will look like in a country rife with corruption and lawlessness. The head of the British army, Sir Richard Dannatt, has said before that the country should be committed to Afghanistan for the "long haul." On Sunday, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain's ambassador to Washington, put the time frame as "decades...